Spike Jonze Explains Why Scarlett Johansson Has Been Plugged Into His New Movie

During the production of Spike Jonze‘s next movie, which has the rather straight-up title of Her, the voice of the title character was provided on set by Samantha Morton. The plan was never for us to see Morton on screen, though, as she was voicing a computer operating system, something likely to fall somewhere between Siri and HAL.

According to the scant plot details already known, the film will be about “a lonely writer” falling in love with that operating system. Joaquin Phoenix appears to be playing the writer.

It was only in post production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together. So we recast and since then Scarlett [Johnasson] has taken over that role.

I can’t quite imagine what Johansson’s voice can do that Morton’s can’t, but seeing as we know incredibly little about the film so far, I’m reluctant to prejudge.

And perhaps the fact that this is a voice only role and we won’t be seeing Morton’s appearance swapped out for that of Johansson we can avoid all of that Woodley-Gadon nonsense.

Her is set for release in the US on November 20th, though Jonze is expected to premiere some kind of preview at the LA Film Festival’s Being John Malkovich event this weekend.

[Have a question for the entertainment experts at BC? Use the Ask BC form instead. Have a comics, film, games, or entertainment commentary that's too epic for a comment thread? Use BC Letters to the Editor.]